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Well I'd then say that it's a failure of the source text, or at least Coppola's interpretation of the source text, that Apocalypse Now fails to give a voice to
by hardwaregeek 4y ago
Well I'd then say that it's a failure of the source text, or at least Coppola's interpretation of the source text, that Apocalypse Now fails to give a voice to the native people. Which, in fairness, is a sin that many commit. John Le Carre, Graham Greene, and many others have failed as well.
- nerdponx 4y agoHeart of Darkness specifically not giving much of any voice to the native people is clearly a deliberate literary device, and Coppola carried it over to Apocalypse Now.
- dekhn 4y agoThat's the whole point of the original book: up the river, there is a natural civilization that simple cannot be understood by western people, it is unknownable and ineffable. "I tried to break the spell--the heavy, mute spell of the wilderness--that seemed to draw him to its pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten and brutal instincts, by the memory of gratified and monstrous passions. This alone, I was convinced, had driven him out to the edge of the forest, to the bush, towards the gleam of fires, the throb of drums, the drone of weird incantations; this alone had beguiled his unlawful soul beyond the bounds of permitted aspirations."